The Shadow of Survival and the Love of Women

Life is constantly full of lessons.

Most of my life I have spent looking for someone to love me, support me, and stand in my corner. I have experienced grief. Not through death, but through loss of relationships. Those people I wanted to love me. But everything is cyclical. Everything is changing. People move in and out. God, Universe, Source is the only constant.

A few nights ago, I spent the entire night in tears. Not a few tears were shed but the embarrassing, gasping sobs that I only last experienced when my ex-husband abandoned me and so did many of my family. Complete heartbreak and the feeling of being alone. But on the ride into work the next day something shifted.

When I did shadow work a year or so ago one of my first shadows was a 10-foot angel. Her wings were drooped and dragging the ground, her eyes concentrated on the earth she circled around a tree stump. She was the visual of falling tears. And while driving that day, with burning, puffy eyes and about 3 hours of sleep she appeared in my mind’s eye. She stopped right in front of me and held my gaze. And slowly her shoulders strengthened, her chin became strong, and slowly her wings traveled up her body and expanded to such a width that the light disappeared. She was strong and brave. She was something I had been missing, but exactly what I knew I had found before. The last time I survived it was her who found the way to spread her wings.

I won’t lie and say I didn’t cry two or three more times throughout the day. It was cleansing to move out the old and not hide my feelings of hurt. However, that evening was the perfect event of Horses and Cacao. I was relieved to sit in circle knowing very few women there. And unprompted, without context, and definitely without knowledge of my situation the host, who I had known for years, looked at me across the circle and said, “You are so smart!” Thank you, thank you, thank you.

That host may have a different response but I would like to think she followed the nudge that encouraged her to say the kind words I needed even though she didn’t understand why. Women showing women kindness. Women showing women support. Women showing women love.

The Ameliorate is ready for her turn and I can bring it to her because one woman assured me I am smart.